You’d be excused if, upon reading that headline, you had the same reaction as if I informed you that it would rain somewhere today. But the rumors are the rumors, and they (“they” being Moviehole) say that Paramount and Skydance would like to “get going quickly on” both a fifth installment of the series and a second Top Gun. More on the latter in just a second.

In the meantime, Ghotocol has been accruing acclaim and fortune in the week since it entered a limited IMAX release (two days since its wide opening), and the benefiting parties would like more. It’s expected that Tom Cruise and much of his compatriots — Simon Pegg, Paula Patton, and Jeremy Renner, the lattermost being this franchise’s potential future — will make a return.

The question, then, of who’s coming back really lies in Brad Bird. Cruise has intentionally sought out different helmers each time — so as to always deliver a different kind of film — but Bird seems more likely to get behind the camera once again than any of the franchise’s other directors have in the past. And it’d be welcome, too; as far as I’m concerned, he delivered the most entertaining, well-crafted entry into the series up to this point. So long as he and the team can make something as fun as Ghotocol again, Bird is more than welcome to stay.

Then there was the brief mention of a follow-up to Top Gun, which Cruisehas talked about as a real possibility, while Tony Scott has treated as something of a spiritual successor to his most famous film. If they can get the original star on board — which I’m really thinking they will — those latter plans would more than likely be put to the side. Although I’m not the person to ask about taking Top Gun into a new millennium, I do admit to holding some desire to see how exactly they’d pull it off. It’s at least worth a shot, right?